Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1887-06-22
WILD BILL OF KANSAS.

His syife's Unsuccessful Effort to
Scare Him Out of His Drinking
Habits.
From the Kansas City Times.
s'Wild Bill was good shot, was he nots"
"With the six-shooter he was simply won
derful. In my entertainment 1 give an il
1ustration of a double shot he made out at
Hays City, Kan, in the early days, when he
shot two soldiers, one in front of him and
one directly behind him, each endeavoring
to shoot him before he could draw his gun.
He killed one and mortally wounded the
other, and the two reports of his revolver
seemed almost as one. The marvellous feat
was the talk of the country for long time.
In fact when came by there few days ago
one of the old residents who witnessed the
killing mentioned it to me- and said he could
scarcely believe it even after seeing it. Bill
never missed his mark. I have seen him
take pistol in each hand and fire with right
and left pistol at can thrown in the air,
hitting it with both bullets. By the way I
heard very funny story told on Bill some
time ago. If you remember he married Mrs
Agnes Lake, widow of Lake, the circus man.
Bill fairly worshipped his wife, but despite
his great love for her she never could induce
him to quit drinking. He would come home
full of bad whiskey and one day Mrs. Hickok
said to him:
"'Bill, if you don't quit drinking pretty
soon you will actually begin to see monkeys
" 'MonkeysY said he. what do you
mean, little one!'
"'Why, you know when people back East
drink too much of the kind of whiskey they
get back there they see snakes, but this aw-
full stuff out here makes them see monkeys
"Bill laughed at her and did not give the
matter second thought, little dreaming
that she had put up job to break him of
his Incorporate habits. There was tame
monkey in the town-Cheyenns believe it
was-and Mrs Hickok had induced its own
er to loan it to her for a night. Bill came
home that night comfortably drunk, and af-
ter he had gone to sleep his wife secured the
monkey and chained it to the foot of the
bed. Then turning down the light little,
she too retired and awaited results. Bill
woke up in the night burning with thirst
and raised up in a sitting posture, intending
to get out of bed and get drink of water.
There, perehed on the foot-board, was the
monkey, staring him in the face with hide
GUS grimaces. He rubbed his bleared eyes,
looked again and horrible suspicion came
into his befuddIed brain. Had his wife told
Finally he sprang out on the floor, seized his
six-shooter which lay on q table near, lev
elled it at the creature and said:
Now, old man, if you are a monkey
you're in bad fix; if you amt monkey I'm
in bad fix At the same instant he fired
and the monkey fell over in the agonies of
death. His wife, who had been Watching
the working of her scheme, sprang up in
bed with scream, and Bill, turning to her
with broad smile of the most intense sat-
isfactien, said:
Little woman. congratulate. me, for I
have just had wonderful escape; amt as
drunk as thought was, an there's a mon
key lynn there on the floor thatlI never in
trude itself into the domestic felicity of an
other happy family an make gentleman
think he's got the jim-jams.'